The latest drone sighting conspiracy theory about a search for missing nuclear material, which got amplified by a New Jersey mayor Tuesday on “Good Day New York,” has quickly been debunked by federal and state officials.
“There is an alert that’s out right now that radioactive material in New Jersey has gone missing on Dec. 2. It was a shipment,” Belleville Mayor Michael Melham told the hosts on Fox’s flagship morning news program in the New York market. “This is just an example of what I think that we’re sniffing for.”
The mayor was referring to a Dec. 12 notice filed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reporting a container from the Nazha Cancer Center in New Jersey with material being sent for disposal arrived at Port Newark with damage and missing its radioactive component.
The theory had been floated on conservative media sites for days and then caught another round of articles with Melham’s comments. Some Staten Island officials also penned a letter to federal authorities on Monday raising questions about the supposed connection.
The material, which measures about 6-inches in length with a 1.5-millimeter diameter, was found Dec. 10 at a FedEx facility, repackaged and sent to its destination, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said in an email Wednesday.
More specifically, the container held an Eckert & Ziegler model HEGL-0132 device, which contains trace amounts of Germanium-68, a radioactive isotope used in CAT scan machines, according to the federal notice
Ge-68 is a commonly used for calibration of PET scanners and for nuclear medical studies and the device poses little threat to the public, according to the DEP
“The Ge-68 pin is a very low-level radiation source that is approved for shipping through common carriers like FedEx. The item is small but is shipped in a larger container for shielding,” the spokesperson said. “The DEP also did not use drones to locate the material.”
Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration told ABC News the administration’s emergency support crew does not use drones for nuclear detection missions.
Earlier this week, a joint statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration, and Pentagon said preliminary investigations indicate the sightings are of legal drones, helicopters, planes, and even stars mistaken for drones.
On Tuesday, the National Iranian American Council welcomed the retraction of U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s claim that an “Iranian mothership” was responsible for the drones sighted in New Jersey air space. The council urged Van Drew, R-2nd Dist., to correct his statement in a Dec. 12 letter.
“At a time of heightened tensions in which war hawks are openly calling for the U.S. to attack Iran, spreading misinformation to scare Americans into fearing a so-called Iranian threat is profoundly reckless and we are glad the Congressman corrected the record,” the council’s policy director, Ryan Costello, said in a statement.
Tuesday night, President Joe Biden told a group of pool reporters at the White House that the U.S. government is closely monitoring the drones, but so far there is “no sense of danger.”
“Nothing nefarious apparently, but they’re checking it all out,” Biden said.
Biden’s comments came a few weeks after President-Elect Donald Trump claimed the federal government appeared to be withholding information on drone sightings.
Melham, who also claimed on “Good Morning New York,” that the government has been less than forthcoming about the sightings, released a statement on Wednesday in which he said he and other officials have been left with more questions than answers.
“Within the span of a day, we’ve heard conflicting statements from high-ranking government officials,” Melham said in the statement. “I’m hoping you can understand why I remain highly skeptical of the official explanations provided thus far.”
Melham previously claimed, without corroboration, that he had COVID-19 in November 2019, two months before the first confirmed case in the United States. He made the claim in April 2020, at the height of the pandemic.
NOTE: This post has been updated to include comments from Belleville Mayor Michael Melham.
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Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
